“Well I’d love to take you back,” …[my Mom] said. “I’m really trying to figure out what this whole overhaul is going to mean. There have been so many rules, at least with my insurance.”
I told my mom I’d take care of sorting out the rules. I called the benefits office of the University of Southern Maine where my mom works and found out that I can re-enroll in her plan in November and be covered by January. Yeah, it’s not Sept. 23 ”” the date the provision “officially” takes effect. I’m just glad my parents have a plan that qualifies.
Right now, I am completely financially independent of them, something I’ve been working for since graduating from college. It is a strange and kind of demeaning concept to revisit a dependent type of relationship with them. I asked my mom recently if she thought this was awkward, too.
“It is what it is,” she told me. “It’s a stopgap measure. And you will be only covered for a couple of years until you turn 26. My hope would be that you would get a job that pays benefits. As far as it costing extra money for us, it didn’t make a huge difference. It wasn’t a whole lot more because I think in general people your age are healthy. And so it would be peace of mind to me to know that you have health care coverage.”
I hope everyone is paying attention the recent news that both CA and CT have approved massive rate hikes 19-30% for the major HMOs to pay for Obamacare. Its not being widely reported as it conflicts with the President’s message that its going to lower health care costs.
There is no free lunch. So, her parents and their employer are going to pay for this provision and for many more provisions. Its a mess.
Re #1
Rubbish. It has absolutely zippo to do with “ObamaCare.” This has been going on for years and it has accelerated massively over the last decade.
For the record, the rate hikes you refer to were requested when health-care reform looked dead. The problem is that the health insurance industry is caught in a classic death spiral. In order to cover sick people they need to have healthy ones paying into their insurance pool. But over the years more and more people have been priced out of health insurance and so the pool keeps shrinking. This in turn forces the insurer’s to raise their rates to cover the sick ones and the vicious cycle repeats itself.
This does not preclude other factors in the massive rise in health care expenses over the last decade. Good old fashioned greed (especially among the large pharmaceutical companies) and excessive litigation by trial lawyers over alleged medical malpractice also contributed. Then you have hospitals, who are forced by law to treat anyone who comes to an emergency room irregardless of their ability to pay. They are being crushed financially and are passing the cost of these unfunded mandates onto those with insurance or enough money to pay for their own medical care. As long as hospital ERs are going to be treated as free primary care centers for the uninsured and indigent we are going to see those costs passed on to the rest of society. Which in turns fuels the cost and premium increases from insurers and the already referenced death spiral.
By requiring ALL Americans to buy insurance, something the insurance lobby strongly supports (just without any regulation of its business practices lol), the insured pool will increase to the point where it should halt the death spiral and the cycle of ever more rapidly rising premiums.
Reasonable people can debate the merits of a system mandating the purchase of private insurance versus a single payer socialized health-care system (i.e. Great Britain). But rational people can not argue that the current system is not dangerously broken. We need to stop rationing health-care on the basis of ability to pay and the size of one’s bank account.
A final thought. The out of control rise in health-care costs over the last decade are one of the major contributing factors in the national debt since senior citizens are covered by Medicare, which is being buried in red ink thanks to the insanity of the current system.
Its always hard to say how much of the 20% increase was caused by the rule changes in the health care legislation (most of what I’ve read says 6 -8%). However it is pretty clear the legislation has done nothing to reduce the increases. I’m not sure in the real world anyone (ie including those who passed the law) expected it to. For example – its not like they thought adding 22-26 year olds to a parents plan wouldn’t cost anything.
Paul
No major reductions in cost are likely before 2014 at the earliest. That is the year that everyone is required to buy health insurance.
Ah yes. The federal government now has the unlimited power under the commerce clause to make the people buy a product from a private company that in the government’s determination is good for us. I wonder how long this love affair with this power will last once it is wielded by the Republicans? Once the federal government acquires a power any party in power can wield it not just the beneficent Democrats.
If the Republican party is the party of fat cat capitalists, as the Democrats charge, I can see a lot of companies earning big bucks as government requires that those products be bought; for the good of the country of course.
Ad Orientemg you’re kidding yourself – even with the games played to make this look good the CBO told us that insurance will cost more with the bill than if it wasn’t passed. I have to go back and look at what they said but from memory it was about 15% more by 2017 (than with no bill at all – and that accounts for any “savings”). That some of those costs are kicking in now should surprise no one. We should expect the rest over the next few years. It is a political/personal/moral question as to whether this is worth the cost. But yes – there is a real dollar cost.
My Blue Cross plan goes up at least 15% every November for at least the last decade. I expect the same this year and they will no doubt blame this increase on Obama.
br. michael i look at it like auto insurance; that everyone should have it so that the costs won’t bankrupt one party when a crash happens.
just because an illness isn’t a physical crash doesn’t mean it doesn’t indirectly affect those around that person who is sick just the same.
the dirty tricks like denying coverage to those who are already ill with pre existing conditions or dropping coverage for superficial reasons should be stopped and requiring everyone to purchase insurance will take care of the risk pool factor.
8, I look at it like the tyranny and treason that it is.
8. here is the point. It’s different sovereigns. The states have the power to do anything they want unless limited by their state constitution or the federal constitution. A state can do what you want. The states have the police power or the general power to do whatever the king can do.
The federal government is a creature of the states and the people. It can only do what they gave it the power to do. That is limited power. The federal government is not the king and can only do what it is allowed to do. The federal governments power is set out in the constitution. And the federal government was not given the the power to do what it is doing. If you at all believe in limited powers and the federal government being limited than this is important and it is what the revolution was all about.
If you think that the federal government has unlimited powers and is a government of police power jurisdiction than the government can do this. But then it can do anything that the Congress wants. And that because the courts have no constitutional basis to rein it in.
We have a severe constitution crisis going on in this country. And my question is do you want the party of Bush to exercise the same powers against you that the party of Obama is claiming against us. Once you unleash power in the name of your party you can’t call it back.
#10 – Br. Michael, although your rhetoric is appealing, when it comes to policy making, it’s pretty thin. Some of us think that health care is a part of the “general welfare” clause in the constitution. And it is the right of Americans, within their public institutions, to negotiate what “general welfare” is. You think that health care isn’t. I do.
I’m willing to give you some criteria for changing my mind. First of all, demonstrating that health is not a public and social issue of interest to communities (or states) or the “general welfare” would change my mind. Showing that the federal government would be less effective than states might change my mind.
However, there are many reasons to complain about government. I don’t think the health care bill is perfect (personally, I think just expanding medicare to include people under 55 and until they are 25 would have been a lot easier, and paying doctors based on solutions rather than per procedure), and I agree that since Reagan, and Republican Control over government, effectiveness has generally gone down. We don’t get what we pay for (it seems to go especially into the military).
I share some frustration. Obama has continued with the strong executive power that Bush had, with some exceptions (say, DADT). He’s continued with Guantanamo. He’s increased troops in Afghanistan and the drone attacks. However, those responsibilities he has the constitutional right to have, such as appointing judges, have been halted by an obstructionist minority.
br. michael you wrote “And my question is do you want the party of Bush to exercise the same powers against you that the party of Obama is claiming against us.”
although it’s true i couldn’t stand bush, i don’t particularly like obama especially on social issues. i have often said that i would have supported mccain if it weren’t for palin.
but i can say with much certainty that bush would not give a crap whether i can afford to see a doctor if i get sick.
also states can be run as fiefdoms; look at texas. perry and the rest of them don’t care about their citizen’s health, otherwise they wouldn’t allow pollution to be spewed into cities and neighbourhoods with abandon. business is king here, citizenry takes a very back seat.
so no, its not perfect but neither is state govt.